3 Steps to Eliminate Self Doubt & Get Everything You Want In Life

my mission today is to trigger you to make you annoyed whether it's at me or somebody else so that you start to go yeah I'm kind of mad I'm mad that I'm not doing the thing that I need to be doing I'm mad at myself for sitting around I'm mad at myself for being scared about whatever you is think instead of doing the thing I need to do or I'm mad that I am holding myself back that I know I am meant to play a bigger game but I refuse to get out of this box

and actually take the damn risk to do it anytime you feel angry good because your anger is trying to tell you something and we're going to talk today about triggers those people and those situations that just really they just trigger you and I am going to walk you step by step through how you can turn those triggers into the biggest and most important teachers in your [Music] life hey it's Mel I am so happy you were here with me today thank you thank you thank you for tuning in and choosing to spend some time with

me I also think it's super cool that you're listening to something that could change your life and by the way today's conversation there is no doubt this will change your life I am showing up with some kind of attitude and energy and I am in the Boston Studios and there is some sort of just gale force wind that is going outside so you might hear the swirl in my voice or you might hear it outside but boy oh boy do I have something to share with you and I'm going to kick off today by telling

you a story so the other day I was talking with a friend of mine and I'm just going to call my friend by the day Molly Molly has an interior design business and just to set the table she's extremely talented I mean Molly has been doing the interior design thing for years she has employees she has a bunch of jobs that she's always working on and the last couple times that she and I have connected she would always ask me for advice about social media and she would be asking me questions like you know Mel

how can I get myself out there you know if you were starting where I'm starting what would you be doing I know I need to be doing more in the social media and the marketing space and the digital marketing for my business but I don't know where to start and I would always give her all kinds of things that she could do I would talk about courses she could take I would talk about the fact that she could just dip or toe in the water and start posting every day to kind of get used to

it she could start on Pinterest I've referred her to accounts to follow and I know that this is something that a lot of people struggle with how to put yourself out there on social media because it's a little overwhelming so the other day Molly calls me and we're chatting away and when she calls me I could tell something was off you know how when a friend of yours just sounds H blah and when I asked her Molly what's wrong I mean you don't sound like yourself is everything okay with the kids she said yeah yeah

yeah the kids are fine I'm not and I saidwell what happened she saidwell something the other night just really triggered me I saw something and it just sent me into a spiral Mel I have been crying ever since I feel like I've just made a major mistake in my business and so I'm listening and I'm thinking what the hell could have happened my gosh like this is really serious well it turns out that someone in the neighborhood who has no interior design expertise this is a person that my friend Molly knows she's known her for

a while because they all met in a mom's group and you know she's known her because they've kind of raised their kids in the same town and without disclosing names this person not exactly my friend Molly's favorite person you know the kind of person in a friend group who draws the attention to the M themselves maybe they're always talking about themselves kind of loud someone just kind of rubs you the wrong way and you maybe have somebody like this in your life where you think you're the kind of person where you're like yeah yeah yeah

I just want everyone to win I'm a positive person I cheer for everyone just not this person you know you and I aren't going to name any names everybody has someone like that in mind well that was this person for my friend Molly and so all of us a sudden this woman is now quote getting into the design business and it just rubbed Molly the wrong way like you know how some people can just just like a thorn in your side because this person as Molly explains they they didn't go to school for this like

I did I studied for years I have all these accreditations I've been doing this for years and now all of a sudden everybody's talking about how talented she is and then the next next thing you know that this person that is irritating to my friend Molly is posting on social media and next thing you know this person's posts are starting to blow up and now this person is starting to get thousands of likes on her Instagram photos of literally just photos of her own house which just burns Molly alive because Molly's like you didn't even

decorate your own house and now this irritating person is going live on Tik Tok and she's on Instagram giving design tips and people love her which really Burns Molly and so last night my friend Molly after a long day of work dealing with her clients puts the kids to bed sits down on the couch turns on the TV picks up her phone she starts scrolling on social media and guess who is all over her feed this irritating woman and Molly right there on her couch in her house loses her freaking mind and so I just

sat there and I listened and as I'm telling you this story about my friend Molly I know you've had this experience that someone out there is triggering you maybe the situation is similar to the one my friend Molly is in maybe you're in the real estate business and you've been doing this for a decade and then all of a sudden there's this brand new person that enter real estate and suddenly they have the $3 million listing down the road I mean what the heck it's triggering we've all been there right and so after I listen

for a while Molly takes her breath and she goes Mel what do you think I should do and I paused because the truth is I've Been In Her Shoes more times than I would like to count I knew because I've been there that uh Molly didn't need a Pity poy she did not need me to be feeling sorry for her what she needed was for someone to kick her in the ass and to be brutally honest and before I tell you what I told her which is also something that you need to hear I want

you to just stop and think of that friend or maybe it's someone online that you don't know but their success really bugs you maybe you feel like they don't have the right qualifications or the right skills or you just don't feel like they deserve the attention they are getting and it's irritating you do you have that person in mind good because I want to tell you the same thing that I told my friend Molly and I want you to remember this the next time you find yourself triggered because you will and the next time you

get triggered and you start feeling sorry sorry for yourself and you start being annoyed that this other person has the thing that you want I want you to remember that pity is not what you need because no one should feel sorry for you and I don't feel sorry for you in fact if you are triggered right now from someone else's success I'm happy for you and the reason why that I am happy for you is because whoever or whatever is triggering you is here to teach you something thing and what I told my friend Molly

is Molly I don't feel sorry for you and you shouldn't be mad at this irritating woman you should be thanking her crickets I was like you there Molly silence that's right you should be thanking her because this irritating woman is teaching you something and by the way she's not not teaching you about what she has she is teaching you that you aren't doing simple things every day that are leading you to where she is and clearly you want it which is why you're triggered in fact I don't think anyone else on the planet can teach

you this lesson Molly and it has to be her it has to be this irritating woman who is the one that is successful and let me tell you why because my friend Molly already follows all the successful interior designers that are creators online she already follows Leanne Ford and Jake Arnold and Studio McGee and Joanna and Chip gains and uh amber Lewis she follows them all and if you like interior design you probably follow them too well none of those people have inspired Molly to get serious about social media and marketing it had to be

that irritating woman with no experience and I want to unpack this a little with you okay and the reason why it had to be her is because when you look at somebody that's way far away from you and in fact before I unpack this I just want to make sure that as you're listening to me you're going to make this relevant so I want you to stop and think about something you want before I unpack this like maybe you want to become a professional golfer or maybe you want to get a job in sports marketing

or maybe you want to start flipping houses there is somebody who is famous and successful that's already out there doing it but they're not inspiring you to get started or they're not inspiring you to stick with the tedious boring things that you need to do and this was my point to my friend Molly it has to be this irritating woman because you've been watching all these famous interior designers you've been talking about doing social media for five years but you have all these oh they have a team they have a this they do that they

have time they have the other thing because there's so much distance between you and the people that you're following online but this irritating woman holy cow if anything you've got more qualifications than she does which is why it has to be her she's triggering you because she's showing you that you are capable of doing the thing you've been avoiding too and in fact this is the interesting thing about people that trigger you in this regard you need to be thanking them because you're not actually mad at them the truth is you're mad at yourself because

you know that you should be doing the little things every day that get you where you want to go when it comes to social media because let's just stop and ask ourselves why is this woman that my friend Molly doesn't like going viral oh oh she has some just unbelievable unicorn strategy that nobody's thought of before no she's going viral the same way everyone is by putting content out every single day I mean just imagine what a what what a genius idea that you would show up on social media and talk about your business and

you would do it every single day and eventually things would start to build imagine that imagine that you could hire someone to help you do this imagine that you could take one less client in your interior design business and then spend the time doing the thing that you're avoiding and here's what I love about this story your triggers are your greatest teachers not because they show you what you need to be doing they do that all right but because they Galvanize your anger and you're not angry at them and that's where I think we miss

the incredible teaching here you're angry at yourself for not doing what you need to be doing so whoever it is that's triggering you number one it had to be them because no one else has come along that is waking you up and I also want to be clear about something you don't have to be happy for their success in fact I do not want you to be fake about it Molly shouldn't go to This Woman's post and start liking it and being like you go because she doesn't mean that she's got to take the lesson

and Galvanize the anger and get herself moving and today we're going to be talking about getting real and we're going to talk about the real power that your triggers have and how they can push you forward and in fact I'm one of them because part of My Success is that I keep showing up and today I am going to teach you that a critical part of your success is being on the lookout for three different types of triggers that are going to show up in your life and Molly just taught you one of those triggers

trigger number one is when the irritating person in your life gets what you want and to just kind of unpack this a little bit more 90% of the time when there is an irritating person that has what you want it's because they are showing up every day and they're putting in what I call the Reps that's what you do at the gym you just put in the Reps and then the muscle builds over time and yeah I will acknowledge that there's probably 10% of the people that are triggering and irritating that just showed up you

know the trust fund babies like half the influencers in their 20s on social media these days where the grandparents did the work and now they're living off the money from the grandparents and they're posting all these fancy photos traveling around the world that's not who I'm talking about I'm talking about the 90% of the time when someone irritating is triggering you because they have something that you want and you don't like that it's them but what they're there to show you and what you're probably not seeing is all the little things that they've been chipping

away at the boring the hard stuff the things they've been doing in the dark while you weren't watching over and over and over and over again and you know what you're angry about you're angry at yourself cuz you didn't start doing it 10 years ago you're angry that you keep making it excuses you're angry that you didn't turn it into a project and prioritize it and so you needed to learn from them that this matters and what I'm here to do is to help you recognize that when it happens that this type of trigger is

number one natural and normal but number two it's a gift it's a very painful gift you can imagine it's like handed to you this disgusting sticky gross paper and you got to tear through it and what you're going to find inside when you really unwrap this gift is you're going to find fuel to motivate yourself what kind of fuel anger anger is a very important motivator and you need to use it and so let me just focus on my friend Molly for a minute because she's been talking about jumping into social media marketing for five

fre years just like you've been talking about writing that book or starting that YouTube channel talk is cheap you know you need to do something and you also know because you listen to this podcast that thinking about something is not the same thing as doing it and inspiration is not enough to get you motivated to do something so inspiration is cheap and as I've already explained to you one of the reasons why it can be really demoralizing to stare at so many people that are successful ahead of you is because you're present to the Gap

I mean why do you think it took me so long to start this podcast because I saw all these incredible successful people in front of me and I felt like I'm never going to get there so as much as it is inspiring to see that it's possible to get something done it is inspiring to see that that's where I want to head you can't stay there because all you see is the gap and that's going to be hard to keep yourself motivated to try to close and that's why anger is really important because it's a

very different emotion that's why your triggers are your teachers that's why that person on social media or the irritating one in the mom's group or all of a sudden Aaron down the hall all of a sudden he's quitting his job and and and he's working full-time at a custom boat business that he's been working on in the dark while you've been busy running spreadsheets that's why it triggers you because the people you know that do it you know you can't make excuses for why you haven't you can't make up an irritating story for the person

who's sitting next to you at work who now just quit because they've been building a business on their weekends while you've been doing something else because you know there's no superpower there's no trust fund there's no upper hand they just started doing it and that's why it had to be them that's why that irritating person is your teacher because you're confronted that your excuses are just excuses that it is possible and you're also going to come to learn that it's normal to be upset totally perfectly normal but if you're serious about being successful you have

no time and you do not have the right to be upset if you have not been doing the tedious boring stuff that leads you to the thing that you want and so that is trigger number one really important really painful it's going to happen a lot in your life so get ready for it welcome it learn how to use it the second type of trigger holy smokes this one was a doozy for me and this was a extremely painful experience and it's about being in a situation where you have no idea what you're doing all

right all right so there's a difference between impostor syndrome and literally having no idea what you're doing and that's what this story is about so I'm going to try to make a long story short but I once talked myself into a job that I had no idea how to do even in telling you this story I'm sitting here so embarrassed by this but I had left the practice of law uh back in 1999 and jumped into the first startup boom here in Boston and I had this extraordinary experience uh working for a startup here in

Boston number four person in the door I had a front row seat to building a company that was in the content space we put up all kinds of online tests it was absolutely amazing but what happened is that company got this funding from a venture capital firm in San Francisco and they were requiring the company to move now I had a baby at home I had a baby inside me I was pregnant my employer did not know and so I needed to get a job and I started to go out for interviews and I ended

up talking my way into a job to be get this the senior vice president of content for a company that was building a platform we're talking back in the day 2001 that was connecting uh creators like graphic designers and video editors and people that did all kinds of creative services with anybody that need those kinds of services now this was like before Facebook and so they were building this Marketplace online and I was all excited and the reason why I got the job is because I could talk a big game because I had had a

front row seat to watching this incredible startup get built but here's the thing I didn't do any of the things that I could talk about so I could talk about what I had scene but I couldn't actually execute it and so I land this job I get a great salary I'm all excited we're in a beautiful startup space and it's like full of Engineers and I show up for my first day and I realize as I'm sitting there I don't have a clue what I'm freaking doing not a clue and I didn't say anything I

sat there I I went to that job every single day I'm laughing for six months and I sat there at my desk and I typed my little emails and I pretended to look busy because I didn't have a clue what the hell I was doing and eventually the people that ran the company figured it out and one day sure enough every day I would go in there it was so triggering because I knew it's not just that I felt like a fraud I I knew I was so out over the tips of my skis I

knew I had no idea what was going on and talk about being a dummy I didn't spend my time trying to figure it out I spent my time hiding just pretending just being there just doing the best that I could I never said a thing and then there was one day where the two Founders called me very publicly it was an open floor plan so I'm sitting in this Loft space and I I get called in and I'm feeling kind of funky like oh my God they're going to ask me a question I don't know

the answer I'm going to have to fake it again and they sat me down and they said Mel I said yes and they said we think you're awesome as a person but you don't have a clue about what you're doing do you and I said no I don't silence I mean complete just you want to talk about being triggered completely called out on my BS at work by the founders in a glass conference room I was told that my things were being packed up as I was sitting in there and that's when you get this

feeling that everybody behind you knows that this is happening it's like the world's worst breakup but you the box is being carried out to my car I remember like saying to myself don't cry don't cry don't cry cuz I was one of the only women that worked there in a sea of Engineers I had no idea what anybody was doing or what they were talking about or what to do in this job I just pretended and I walked out looking at my feet I I didn't even look straight ahead just like look down look down

get out and as I walked through the door and that door closed behind me it was one of those doors that when it swings shut it sort of sends us like at your back and your hair kind of flies forward and I'll tell you something having someone call you out on your BS is one of the most triggering things that could ever happen to you when somebody says you're cheating aren't you or you're drinking again aren't you or you spent that money I gave you didn't you or you didn't get the job and you've been

pretending you did or you don't know what you're doing and here's the thing I want to tell you about that extraordinarily triggering thing cuz I'm not going to lie to you it was so embarrassing I felt so ashamed I felt mortified I was mad at myself I was mad at myself not just for lying about my capability but then pretending for so long but I was also mad that while I was sitting there I didn't do anything to actually learn any skills I didn't do anything to try to ask for help and so as painful

as it was to sit for 6 months in a job that I was royally screwing up pretending everything's cool this was a key to my success and let me tell you why without that trigger I wouldn't be the person that I am today without the trigger of someone calling me out on being a liar on not saying I don't know what I'm doing I would have never have learned what a superpower it is to say at any moment I don't know what I'm doing to say I don't know the answer to say I've never done

that before or to say you know this is way out of my comfort level but can I hire someone to help or can I take a class on this and what I've come to learn that I wouldn't have known without that triggering moment of somebody else calling me to the mat is the power of just being honest in fact you guys constantly write in and you're like oh gosh Mel you're so authentic you're so this it's because I am the first person to say and in fact you hear it on the podcast all the time

don't you and I'm like that's a big word what does that mean or I said well I don't even know what you just said can you explain that in a way that that I could understand I don't have any embarrassment about that in fact I think it's a sign of intelligence and it also based on the research get this when somebody says I don't know it creates tremendous trust because when somebody tells you they don't know you go oh I can trust this person to tell me when they don't know and that is a massive

teach teacher in my life I have zero fear about not knowing something I have zero fear about asking for help I have zero fear about telling somebody that I need support in something and that has led to me taking major risks that's led to me being honest it's led to me solving problems faster and it will lead to the same thing for you so wherever it is that you're hiding out someone's coming someone's coming someone's coming and it's going to be painful see might as well learn this lesson from me today and start speaking up

so let's talk about the third type of trigger and the third type of trigger is those moments in your life where you're playing small because you're scared now this is that impostor syndrome trigger that feeling like you're a fraud and and here's the thing about impostor syndrome impostor syndrome is when you're in a situation where you want to be successful and no one around you is underestimating you you are underestimating your capability see in the situation I just told you where I was fired for that job I wasn't underestimating anything I was lying and pretending

that's very different but there are situations in your life where you have the capability to learn you have the capability to step out of the tiny little box youve put yourself in but even though people around you are giving you more or telling you go for that job like apply to the better school like start that business I see something bigger for you you keep yourself small and that happened to me at the very beginning of my uh speaking career when I first started getting paid to give speeches about the 5-sec role we're talking 2013

2014 here my husband and I were in so much debt that I didn't feel worthy of getting paid a lot of money and the other thing that was really against me and that kept me feeling really small is that I just felt like if I asked for more money people would not hire me and so I had to keep my fee small because that way more people would book me and then all of a sudden this thing happened I gave a speech in Vegas at a big event for event planners and somebody saw me speak

and they were wowed thank God and they decided okay I'm going to take a shot and I'm going to book this woman for an event that I am organizing and creating for a massive publicly traded Bank I'm talking like a Fortune 50 Bank the CEO and the chief HR officer were doing an executive Retreat it was in Philadelphia I will never forget this and it was one of the first of the speeches that I gave where I was consistently getting paid and I did not charge a lot of money because I was scared to charge

a lot of money I didn't think I was worth it I was afraid people wouldn't book me who's going to who's going to pay a woman like that x amount of dollars I mean she doesn't have a book she's not a celebrity she's not some Fancy Pants person how is she worth that and so I kept myself small despite the fact that friends of mine in the business told me you got to charge more dude like you're you're you're way underpriced I'm like oh I don't know I don't think anybody hire me for that so

long and the short of it this person books me because they see me at a different event they bring me in to an event in Philadelphia full of a hundred Executives right for this big bank and speaking that day we a number of people that I so admired I'm talking New York Times bestselling Ted Talk this like the intellectual Giants Dan pink was there there were some other people there I was so enamored with this these people that I flew in early and I sat in the back of the room like a church mouse absorbing

everything from these amazing famous intellectual authors and these super smart people which was a terrible idea by the way because all it did was make me feel smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and then I got up I was the closer and I did my thing and I told the story of the 5sec rule and I thought this is GNA be the last speech I ever give because this is terrible compared to all this intellectual stuff that all these other people are talking about I'm just talking about normal people changing their life doing 54

3 2 1 and it brought the house down and then something extraordinarily triggering happened the head of HR walked up and she said to me I feel an obligation to tell you something that is going to be very painful to hear because I think it's important as a woman that I support another woman in knowing the truth and I'm thinking oh my God what the hell have I done and she said you were 10 times better than any of the speakers that we hired for this three-day Summit 10 times better hands down and we paid

each and every speaker five times the amount we paid you in fact your price was so low that we didn't believe that you were as good as people said you were and when she gave me that feedback first of all I'm glad she didn't say what I thought she was going to say which that was terrible and we're really disappointed and we need our money back but when she said that it just like g hit me in the heart when somebody tells you that you're playing small and when they have the just generosity to also

tell you the painful thing you're missing out on because you're keeping yourself small and the truth is as painful as it was to hear that I got lucky that day because it could have been just as easy for her to think that and not say it and I'm telling you the story because I think it's important in any area of your life where you're playing small your keeping yourself in a box maybe you're not posting your music online maybe you're not starting that YouTube channel maybe you're not writing that book maybe you're not writing that

business plan maybe you're not charging what you need to charge maybe you're not firing that pain in the ass client that's taking up all your time and that nickel and dimes you on the bill wherever it is that you're playing small you're ignoring the people in your life that are like you deserve so much better than this you need to apply for that huge job that's out of reach you need to apply to that dream School you do need to take the risk and move across country or backpack around the world wherever you are playing

small you need to listen to the people that see something bigger for you because you see it too you're just scared and if you see somebody in your life be the chief HR officer for them tell them what they're missing out on by keeping themselves jammed in the small box is it going to be an easy conversation no is it going to to be a conversation that teaches someone you love something they need to hear absolutely which is one of the most loving things that you can do stop withholding this stuff from people and hit

them straight between the eyes with it because this is the kind of truth that we all need and that's why triggers in your life are so important and there's three in particular that I hope you will pay attention to number one when someone you don't like someone irritating is getting what you want o hate that but I hope now you love it because that's who it had to be it had to be them because you need your anger to get through your BS and get to work or when someone calls you out on your BS

you're not supposed to spend your life faking and lying and not saying stuff you're supposed to have the courage and the conviction to tell the truth and the easiest way to get help is to ask for it the easiest way to figure out and to learn something is to start by admitting I don't know how to do this and then you'll be surprised how quickly you can learn how to do it and finally someone who has the respect for you somebody that you respect pointing out that you're playing small oof and what's your missing out

on or the fact that they gave something to somebody else CU you didn't step up oh my God those moments suck don't they but they're also critical in your life and so what do you do with this well number one just recognize it recognizing it simply recognizing it I hope I hope this episode by the way was very triggering that was my mission my mission today is to trigger you to make you annoyed whether it's at me or somebody else so that you start to go yeah I'm kind of mad I'm mad I'm mad that

I'm not doing the thing that I need to be doing I'm mad at myself for sitting around I'm mad at myself for being scared about whatever you think instead of doing anything I need to do I'm scared I'm I'm mad that I've gotten myself in over my head and I'm hiding instead of standing up and fixing this or I'm mad that I am holding myself back that I know I am meant to play a bigger game but I refuse to get out of this box and actually take the damn risk to do it and so

now I want to connect these three types of triggers with the advice that you need because when someone that you don't like is getting what you want and you're not dealing with the 10% of the situation where it's the trust funders or it's a situation of bias or it's a situation of privilege or it's a situation where they were just naturally born with a supermodel Brazilian bikini body no I'm talking about the 90% where someone someone that oh God you just they're putting in the work and they're getting where you want to be and it's

irritating or someone calling you out on your BS yeah you're going to feel embarrassed but you haven't asked for help or you haven't been honest with the people around you or you haven't been ProActive at actually upleveling your own skills so that you can swim in the deep end or the third where a person is pushing you to take a risk and man you like a mule you have dug those Hooves in you are staying in that box I want you to apply to the better school go for the bigger job do not keep yourself

small I want you to welcome these triggers because they are the greatest teachers ever feeling embarrassed being over your head getting angry because the thing about triggers the more you avoid doing something that you know you need to be doing the bigger the trigger is going to get see I find in my life the more stubborn I get life doesn't just disappear life shows up with a bigger sledgehammer and so step one is just identify oh here I am I'm triggered Mel said this is good news I recognize I got something I need to do

and here's step two you want the formula play the 100 day rule that's it play the 100 day rule that's all you got to do you want to grow your social media following post for 100 days you want to write a killer song write song lyrics a 100 days in a row write crappy songs 100 songs 100 days in a row you want to publish a book every single day for 100 days you better be writing you want to get better at a three-point shot 100 days basketball court 15 minutes hitting the three-point shot that's

how you do it cuz that's where the work is done and here's the other thing I want you to do anytime you feel angry good anger gets a bad reputation but getting really angry at yourself it can be really important if you know what to do with it because your anger is trying to tell you something so if you're sitting there and now you're like really annoyed good I'm your trigger because that's exactly what this episode has been designed to do wherever you are in a situation where you know what you should be doing and

you're not doing it stop looking at all the people ahead of you they're not going to get you to do it it's the one person that is near you that's annoying you they have to be the one anger is the shot in the ass that you need the trigger is just the universe shaking you and the more you ignore it the louder and more painful it's going to be all right you know funny it stopped raining outside uh I guess that means my work here is done oh no it isn't one more thing recognizing the

trigger is the hardest part but it is the first step and if you can stop yourself from just swirling and you recognize that the Universe has handed you a teacher holy cow you're going to be unstoppable absolutely Unstoppable and in case no one else tells you I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life to learn social media to not be bothered by what that irritating person is doing and to show up every day and put your head

down and just do the hard annoying thing because that is what is going to lead to all the success that you deserve talk to you in a few days and for you sitting here watching with me on YouTube I just want to say please share this with somebody don't just sit and watch please do something and take a minute and subscribe to this channel because it's really a way that you can support me and bringing you new videos every single day and I'm sure you're looking for something really inspiring to watch to really move you

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